A Balancing Act
by personaeleven
Summary: Picks up where the anime ends. The Host Club is perfectly happy the way it is, and nothing needs to change. But change is the only constant in this world.


_The clock strikes twelve. And the carriage keeps on moving._

When Haruhi had taken the reins of that ridiculously overpriced horse-drawn carriage, she'd finally understood what Kaoru had been talking about. She'd understood why he had been so insistent on learning how to drive it.

And in that moment she'd understood that she too wanted, _needed_ the carriage wheels to keep spinning. She hadn't exactly managed to keep the actual carriage from crashing and falling into the river, but she had gotten Tamaki back for all of them.

"Midnight, Cinderella." Tamaki sat down beside her on the school steps. The courtyard in front of her was littered with ribbons, flowers and random objects, all remnants of the Ouran Academy school festival. Everyone had left, by now, but without anyone saying it the Host Club had remained, dancing, feasting, and generally entertaining themselves with that wide expanse of empty space. "I guess that makes me your prince," he said gleefully.

She'd missed his brilliant, stupid smiles, the ones that lit up his face and those violet eyes. They'd been absent for the past two days; seeing one now was like a breath of fresh, cool night air. Haruhi smiled. "I-"

"No, boss," Hikaru drawled, popping up behind them suddenly. He leaned on the pillar, movements languid, his cast out at an awkward angle. "That makes you the useless father who died and left her to the whims of the evil stepmother."

Behind the twins, Kyouya chuckled. Evilly, Haruhi thought.

"I think we're much better candidates for princes," Kaoru added. Hikaru turned to obscure the cast, and the twins struck a symmetrical, soulful pose. "Enigmatic, handsome, charming..."

"Go away you doppelgängers! If anything the two of you are the evil stepsisters bullying my precious Haruhi. Leave her alone!"

"Oh yeah? Well you can't be the prince either!" "Get offstage you're supposed to be dead!"

"I am the princely type!" Tamaki looked outraged. "Of _course_ I'm the prince. Right, Haruhi?"

"Eh..." Haruhi looked around for some help, but the boys had all fallen silent. And were all looking at her. She shifted and pulled her knees closer to her chest. "Eh... All of you are princes! All of you are dressed like princes anyway, hehe."

Everyone looked mildly disappointed, for a moment. Even Kyouya, who rarely wore an expression that wasn't disdainful or triumphant. Or both.

"Haruhi!" Tamaki whined. "I'm more of a prince than those two are combined! Kyouya!"

"Well, I can't say that characterizing all of us as princes is the right answer," Kyouya said, eyeing Haruhi. "But since you insist on Haruhi being your 'daughter' all of the time I hardly think you're an acceptable candidate for the 'prince'. Neither are Hikaru or Kaoru." He seemed to have accepted his evil stepmother role with much grace. "In this case the prince would have to be either Mori or Honey, depending on what your requirements for a prince are. Blonde? Tall? Brooding?"

"Me or... Takashi?" Honey looked up at Mori. "The prince should be tall, right?"

"Yeah." Mori nodded once. Haruhi couldn't believe, not for the first time, that even Honey and Mori would play along with this ridiculous fancy of Tamaki's. But they always did. They all always did. And in some way this was the Host Club's welcoming back their king, she knew.

"So Takashi's the prince!"

"Mori... senpai?" Tamaki lunged at the older boy. "Please let me be the prince instead! Please please please! I'll do anything. I want to be Haruhi's prince!"

If Haruhi squinted a bit (a lot) it'd look like the usual sight of Honey grabbing at Mori's legs, but Mori's bewildered expression made it clear this was by no means usual. Honey skipped over and pulled Tamaki away.

"Tama-chan? If you're Haru-chan's father you can never be her prince."

Honey was as sweet as ever, his eyes shining down at Tamaki. He lifted his gaze to Haruhi.

Tamaki sniffled. "Oh all right! Mori-senpai! To be the best prince for my little Haruhi you're going to need some lessons in being a prince. Lucky for you I bring my handy prince handbook around. Come!" He jumped up and pulled Mori, still bewildered, into a corner. "Rule Number #1: Know your ideal angles. This is really important..."

"Tamaki. As much as this is really amusing, the seven of us should be getting home," Kyouya said. "It's past midnight, and it's been a long day. I'm sure Ranka is worried."

"Haruhi's father!" Tamaki snapped to attention, his face alarmed. "Yes, of course, we must all go home ASAP. Club dismissed! Haruhi! I'll send you home, there aren't any buses home at this hour."

Haruhi waited for the twins' usual protest to start up, for the inevitable tussle, for Kyouya to shut them all down and point out that the most efficient person to escort her home would probably be himself.

Except nobody said anything.

Hikaru yawned, loudly and slowly. "Well, I suppose we better go home, Kaoru. I think the limousine has been waiting for a long time." The twins interlinked their fingers and walked towards the school entrance.

"We're going too! Bye bye everyone!"

"Bye."

What? Tamaki was really going to send her home? Not that Haruhi cared; it would only be a favour from a senpai to his kouhai, after all. Nothing more. It wouldn't be awkward in the least… right? She looked up at Kyouya and willed him to say something, alarmed.

Kyouya sighed and pushed his glasses up his nose. "Well, come on then, you two. The car is here." Tamaki beamed and pulled Haruhi up to her feet, the two of them hurrying to keep up with Kyouya's brisk pace.

"I always go home in Kyouya's car." Tamaki said it as if he were commenting on the darkness of the night sky, enveloping the three of them. Then, softer, so only Haruhi could hear: "I don't think my grandmother would bother to send me one, tonight."

And so Haruhi remembered - the world that existed outside their carriage still spun, a forest fraught with shadows and stones and thick tree roots, threatening to trip up the seven of them. And so she realised that the fight today was just the beginning. She placed her hand on Tamaki's shoulder, squeezing slightly, and received a sombre, sweet smile in return.

And so she decided that for the sake of that smile, for the sake of all the smiles she'd seen, tonight, Haruhi would do her damnedest, not to let anything crash their carriage.

* * *

The Tonnérre family owned properties all over France, and the main house was a large mansion on the off-skirts of Versailles, so the townhouse in Paris was usually empty. It was, however, occupied at the moment by Éclair's aunt and second cousin, who were visiting from England.

The clock in the hallway read four p.m.

"Mademoiselle Tonnérre! We weren't expecting you."

The maid's exclamation echoed through the house, and Éclair's cousin heard it from her guest room. She was back, then? She'd thought Éclair would have gone straight to the main house to show off her gorgeous Japanese fiance. Half-French, apparently. Only heir to one of the largest companies in Japan, and only seventeen. The male version of Éclair, then.

Perhaps she was stopping by to freshen up. It was strange that the maid had only addressed Éclair, though.

"I need a shower." Éclair's clipped tones were followed by the sharp click-clack of her heels down the hallway. Solitary steps. For whatever reason, Éclair didn't have her fiance with her. Éclair's cousin tiptoed to the doorway and peeked out, watching the older girl click into her room and shut the door.

Her hair had been down. She hadn't seen Éclair with her hair down since the two of them were children - she remembered the silky hair slipping through her clumsy fingers, as she tried to braid it like Éclair had done for her, before the other girl had gotten impatient and summoned one of the maids to do it. Nowadays it was usually up in some impeccable, sophisticated hairstyle, to match Éclair's impeccable, sophisticated fashion sense. Not to mention her exquisite face and ice-blue, blinding eyes.

Éclair's cousin settled back down in front of a Japanese history textbook, marked out painstakingly with katakana. She was fluent in conversational Japanese, but writing and reading it was a different matter. Her mother seemed to think it should be easy - she was, after all, fluent in English, French, Japanese and Italian - and so it would have to be easy, for her.

She absorbed herself in the textbook, until the loud, intrusive ringing of the telephone jolted her out of it. It stopped quickly, thankfully, but she heard the hurried footsteps up the stairs.

"It's Monsieur for you, Mademoiselle," the maid said. The footsteps gradually receded. She heard Éclair's polite, lilted tones, greeting her father.

"Non, non – _Papa_," her voice rose. "The decision was all mine. I could not see myself married to him. He's an idiot. He would have been no good to us."

A long silence stretched from the hallway. Éclair's cousin wondered if she'd put down the phone in irritation, or if Uncle Egan was simply that much of a talker.

"Oui. I know, Papa. Oui, of course. Goodbye." Some shuffling. She had just spent ten minutes eavesdropping on her cousin instead of studying her text, she thought guiltily, trying to direct her attention back to the book.

"Miyu."

She looked up to see Éclair standing in the doorway, her hair up in a slick bun. Her hands were empty of her unusual opera glasses, but her fingers seemed to spin an invisible rod, all the same.

"Papa says Aunt Rena will be busy the entire night; she's not coming home till morning. I'll be leaving for Versailles first thing tomorrow. We'll have dinner together – would you like me to take you out? Have you eaten out in Paris yet?"

Brisk and efficient. Miyu felt vaguely like a checked box on Éclair's long to-do list. Miyu shook her head. She did wish Éclair would speak to her in English instead of French.

"I know the _perfect_ place. We'll leave at six-thirty." Miyu turned to leave, but then spun around quickly, like she'd remembered something. "I am no longer engaged, by the way, in case you were wondering. I broke it off."

Miyu frowned. "He wasn't… up to par?"

"He was an idiot," Éclair said, a small smile ghosting her lips. "A full-blown idiot."

"He couldn't have been that bad."

"No, he really was. I tried to ruin his life, you know," Éclair said serenely. "I tried to take him away from all his friends, and his lover, and in the end he offered me the sweetest smile I have ever seen. I had the entire plane ride to think, and I realise I was, before, simply infatuated with an idea of him, that didn't exist. Whoever I marry needs to be much more intelligent than that."

She sounded awfully fond of him, despite her conviction of his idiocy. And had she really done all of that? Ruin his life? Miyu searched for something to say. "Well, I'm sure your husband will be as capable as you."

Éclair looked at her, her thin, blue eyes thoughtful. "As I am sure. And yours will be a fantastic husband as well, non? I haven't seen you and your sister in so long! You've always been the pretty one, though. Mama says you've started to dabble in modeling. How cute. You're moving to Japan with Aunt Rena? You're not going to... Ouran Academy, by any chance?"

Miyu flushed. "Lobelia Girls' Academy."

"Oh." Éclair looked mildly disappointed. "Well, if you change your mind, Ouran Academy has a _lovely_ campus."

And lovely people too, no doubt. Miyu wondered why on earth Éclair would want her to go to the same school as her fiancé – ex-fiancé.

"I'll... definitely consider it, if Lobelia falls through." Ouran Academy. Her mother had mentioned it. But her mother had also indicated that an all-girls' school would probably be more beneficial to her education.

"Good. Oh, look at the time! I must dress for dinner. You should too." Éclair kissed Miyu on the cheeks, briefly, and excused herself, her dress fluttering behind her as she left. Perfect. Intelligent, beautiful, seventeen, and already being groomed to become Grand Tonnérre's president.

Miyu sighed and began picking out an outfit.

* * *

Author's note: Thanks for reading! Do leave me a review; all constructive criticism is appreciated.

This is an experiment of sorts, borne out of an idea that's been stewing in my mind for a while. Yes, this story has an OC, but I do intend to focus on the other relationships in the Host Club as well, and hopefully tell a realistic story! Word of warning, though: it's probably going to be very, very long, and possibly very (but not unnecessarily) detailed, sometimes. I also tend to get a bit absorbed in my fictional worlds so if you think someone is acting out-of-character, don't hesitate to give me a virtual slap to wake me up!

Once again, thanks for reading (: I'll update soon!


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